Go forth and blog

I read an awesome article by Ruth Gledhill, who is the Religious correspondent for The (London) Times on one of their blogs.  The post is about Church leaders in the UK drawing up the “Ten Commandments” of blogging, in order to help blogging Church-goers to avoid temptation. Thought-up and rubber-stamped at a conference called “Godblogs” in London, the commandments cover a wide range of potential pitfalls:

1 You shall not put your blog before your integrity 

2 You shall not make an idol of your blog 

3 You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin 

4 Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog 

5 Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes 

6 You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings 

7 You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind 

8 You shall not steal another person's content 

9 You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger 

10 You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content   

As if thinking up the commandments wasn’t enough, they have been “engraved on cyberspace tablets” by the Evangelical Alliance. I’ve hunted high and low for these virtual tables, but I can’t find them, all I could find was this post by the Evangelical Alliance

MyTake – We all need a few rules now and then to keep us honest, but I’m not so sure that there’s that much religion in the above. It’s more common sense. If you take away the “You shall nots” then you’ve got a fairly sensible list. I do think this is more of a publicity stunt than anything else – don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a good publicity stunt, and this IS a good publicity stunt. It’s not quite Moses on the mountain stuff, but it’s certainly getting the word out. 

The Twitter song

Ahh, Twitter, we love you. You have already spawned the Fail Whale and now you have your own song.  Written by a UK musician called Ben Walker, the song proudly proclaims that "you're nobody if you're not on Twitter, and if you aren't there already, you've missed it".

I have to say, it's very catchy and has a healthy dose of good old fashioned British humour. It reminds me of the London Underground song that came out a few years ago, only without the swearing and stuff.....

MyTake - Don't worry, you've not really missed it, go and join Twitter today and you can even follow Ben or yours truly.  This is yet another example of social media inspiring popular culture (you may have read my post on Facebook: The movie) and I think we are just going to see more and more examples of this. So, next time someone tells you that social media is a waste of time, sing them the Twitter song.  

He said, he said

Google seem to be in the news a lot today, but I’ve had enough Android as it’s not going to make it to Australia (big island in the southern hemisphere) and an Engadget test shows that the iPhone is faster. My Google news today is Google In Quotes from Google Labs, and it’s fun for all the family. In Quotes in a comparison tool that allows you to see what politicians are saying about certain topics, when you load up the site it defaults to the US edition featuring McCain and Obama. 

As well as the US edition there is also UK, Canadian and Indian editions, but not an Australian (big island in the southern hemisphere, you know Kangaroos and all that) edition. Each edition has a number of default topics to compare quotes on, using the US edition it is: Iraq, oil, Bush and Iran, but you can also add other topics like, oh, I don’t know…say the economy? My favourite feature of the site is the “spin” button that acts a bit like a one-armed bandit, spinning the quotes before stopping on some new quotes for you to muse upon. 

MyTake – A good, timely piece of lighthearted fun from the guys and gals at Google. I am a huge fan of the “spin” function, if only politicians could actually have this when they are speaking – how much fun would that be! Anyway, good fun, go check it out for yourself. 

The Andoid will take over

I already posted on the first phone to use Google's Android, but some news out to day seems to hint at the operating system going further than just the humble phone. Because Google Android is majority open-source, people have the chance to do whatever they want with it. According to the news doing the rounds today, some of the other places we could see Android includes TVs, set-top boxes and in-car computers.....interesting. 

Apparently, the cat was let out of the bag by John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer at Wind River Systems who said something along the lines (you can read more in this Cnet article) of this, "We're starting to see Android get designed in on devices that extend way beyond the phone--things that might go in the automobile or things that might go in the home". Oh really John, tell us more. "I don't want to pre-announce any design wins," he said. "I think you'll see them in 2009. I would be shocked if you didn't." 

MyTake - It's a bit like watching a football (soccer) match where you expect a coach to do one thing, then he comes out with a formation and set of players that you'd never expect - something is about to happen. In hindsight, it's probably obvious to some that Android would end up on other devices. After all, it seems to be a very flexible operating system that could be easily adapted to other uses. Expect an upset or two from the boys and gals at Google.

I'm a PC....and me...and me....and me

My Apple obsessed brother will probably kill me for putting this on my blog, but I actually think it’s a really great advert. I have to admit, I actually liked the Jerry Seinfeld adverts as well, though I appear to be the only one that does. 

 

I think Microsoft has done the right thing by focusing on the diversity of their audience. For all the criticism we throw at them, they have revolutionised they way we work, live and play and I think that this advert demonstrates that in more ways than one. 

MyTake – I think the Apple boys are probably sitting there thinking “bring it on”, because this is what they (Apple) do best. In all honesty, I don’t think that Apple will get drawn in to a war of adverts, I think they’ll probably change their creative, but also lift the bar at the same time. Microsoft have struggled when it comes to marketing, especially on the advertising side, which is interesting considering the PR side of Microsoft is very well run compared to that of Apple. But - Microsoft, pat on the back, it’s a good advert.

Let the Android party begin

If you’d have asked me my opinion about the mobile phone industry pre the iPhone, I’d have told you that it needs a good kick up the ass because we’re all sick of hearing about wap and video calling. Then the iPhone came along and set the bar (a far bit) higher and challenged the rest of the market to follow. And followed they have, every other manufacture has produced a so called “iPhone killer” to take on the boys at Apple. The problem is though, it’s not just about the hardware, is it?

Enter Google and their Android. The guys at Google know a killer app when they see one, so you’d probably be fairly safe in saying that Android is going to be the next installment in an already glittering portfolio. The news today is that T-Mobile in the US is going to be the first to show off a handset (HTC) featuring the software at a conference in New York on 23 September.  It’s going to be interesting to see how the media and analysts react to it as this is Google’s play to widen their advertising model.   

MyTake – This is really the best front to attack Apple on. It really doesn’t matter how cool that handset is, if the user-experience is poor, then so is the handset. Google have gone down the same road as Apple by opening up the software to third party developers, which in my opinion was Apple's master stroke. I predict a real clash of the titans type battle between these boys. 

Banking blunders break light bulbs

Some of the most innovative and forward thinking companies in the world could be in the front row when it comes to the inevitable funding cuts. As nervous investors all around the world strap themselves in for what is proving to be a bit of a bumpy ride on the global finance markets, small emerging tech companies look to be the first the get the chop. According to reports coming out of the UK, a total of $300 million funding has been diverted away from regional development agencies in order to prop-up the struggling housing market.

It’s a move that is probably being mirrored all over the world, with small start-ups being denied funding that they need in order to establish themselves and develop products. In a very real way, the immediate impact of the current stock-market problems will have a knock on effect in terms of future growth because the ideas of today wont be supported in order to provide the products of tomorrow.   

MyTake – Someone’s house is obviously more important, but we really shouldn’t be in this situation to start with. Check out Thomas Friedman’s article here for a great insight and opinion on the current situation. It’s irritating to think that this could mean some of the best new ideas in the world will never get heard. I’d also take aim at some of the mainstream media here as well, because they have a responsibility. They have a responsibility to tell the story as it is without over dramatising it. I was watching the news yesterday when the anchor darkly claimed that global markets were in “meltdown”, real the end is neigh type stuff. I also saw a UK tabloid comparing the situation to the great depression – great stuff guys, let’s panic the world into a recession shall we.

    

3D web

Ever had one of those moments when you try something for the first time and you think to yourself that might have just experienced something that is going to have a huge impact on society? They don’t happen often, because things like that just don’t come along everyday. But I think I might just have had that feeling when I downloaded and installed ExitReality, a piece of software that turns the web into a virtual 3D world and lets you roam about it using an avatar.   

Now we’ve had the likes of Second Life for a while, but this goes an extra mile (possibly thousands) and allows you to experience the web that’s out there now in 3D and what’s more – you can easily customise your own site for other visitors to enjoy. Founded and developed by Danny Stefanic, ExitReality turns standard webpages into virtual hang outs, for example if you visit YouTube it’s like being in a giant theatre.  It also allows you to interact with other visitors through your avatar thanks to a messaging function and a series of gestures.   

MyTake – Go and try this, you won’t regret it. It’s a small 3.5MB download that’s loaded up very quickly. I found it a little bit clunky and the load-times for pages are obviously not as quite as it would be if you were surfing the web normally. But that said, the experience was amazing and as they say in the movies, this could be the start of something special. 

It pays to be social

I’m a bit biased when it comes to the U.S. elections as I’m very much an Obama fan. Even though I’m not American (and therefore have no say in the matter) I think that the election of the next President of the United Sates of America is pretty important to all of us. So, it’s with interest that I have been following the news on the election, occasionally posting a few stories here when it relates. Here is one such story that relates –Obama has more friends than McCain.

It’s official. According to a report by Pew Research Centre that looked at the respective candidate’s online presence, Obama is the man out in front.  With 1.7 million Facebook supporters and 510,000 MySpace friends, Obama out punches McCain with 309,000 Facebook supporters and 88,000 MySpace Friends. The report also revealed that Obama’s fan base on YouTube was 11 times the size of McCain’s. 

MyTake – They’re going to call this the Facebook election the rate this is going. It’s amazing to see the emphasis that is being placed on each candidate’s online presence and activities. With such a large geographic area to cover, online does offer the best solution to interact with your audience on a continuous basis, but it's the effort that's being put into the space that is quite amazing. I can’t wait for election day on Facebook -  “Barack Obama is……the President of the United Sates of America”

Lots of Thread(les)s to wear

I’ve been a T-shirt junky for a while now and I love it when I pick up something that I know a lot of other people aren't going to have. It all started for me when I was living in London and still considered myself to be relatively young and cool. I fell in love with small boutique brands like CardBoredRobert and my passion has never left, even though my cool factor has probably waned (a lot). But every now and again, I pick-up a new T when I find something off the beaten track. 

So, you can imagine my joy when I came across Threadless, which actually combines my love of all things social on the web with original ideas that manifest themselves as T-shirts. It’s hard to describe exactly what Threadless does in its entirety because it’s more than just a T-Shirt company. They are a community of artists and fans that come up with new ideas for T-shirts, help shape those ideas and then help bring the T-shirts to life through UGC such as fan pictures. 

The design featured in this post caught my attention and the designer, Evan Ferstenfeld, says this of it “This slogan came to me while thinking about our trusty ol' internet, and what would happen if without warning it decided to roll down its iron gates and close up tight for the holidays and beyond like any other shopping arena in real life? My guess: a 135 percent increase in people rolling on the floor laughing at bars and picnics around the globe.” And drinking beer Evan, don’t forget the beer…. 

MyTake – Pretty damn awesome idea, I’m just going to have to figure out how to get a T-shirt before they sell out! I love the collaborative approach they have taken and the idea of the Street Team is a great way to engage an already active community. It’s not going to change the world, but it will bring a smile to your face, it will give designers the chance to showcase their work, and most importantly….it’ll give me a bit of cool back.

Napster gets Best Bought

The first experience most of us had with online music probably came through Napster (not me gov, clean as a whistle I am!) when they were lauded as a peoples champion for allowing us to “share” our music using the Internet. Many of us probably watched their decline and inevitable battle with the giants of the music industry in what arguably laid many of the building blocks for the online music services we have today. So, as 2008 turns its head towards the final quarter of the year, Napster’s ride comes to a close as it steps closer to a buy-out by US electronics retailer Best Buy.   

According to the press out there so far, Best Buy has valued Napster’s share at twice the market value as it prepare to seal the deal. Despite a few acquisitions of their own and the long (and hard) road they have travelled, it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to the little chap with the earphones. I’m not exactly sure what Best Buy’s plans are for the brand, if they’ll keep it or if they are simply after the interface and subscribers, but it does seem sadly ironic that the maverick of music is getting bought out by a mall stalwart.   

MyTake – We salute you Napster, for showing us that there was an easier way to get, store and play our music – who knows where the online music industry would be today without you. The likes of iTunes owe a lot to the early pioneers of online music, Napster being the biggest. So, unplug those earphones little fella and take that nap you’ve been after. 

Open sauce storage

Alright, so that’s my lame attempt at a play on words, but this is anything but lame, check this out - It’s a bottle opener that’s also a flash drive! Somebody brought their A-game to work the day this was thought-up. I can probably guess the tough process behind it – you’re stuck at work late, its beer o’clock and you want to get home, but you’re got stuff to do…enter TrekStor’s storage/bottle opener thingy so you can store your work to take home after you’ve opened a beer. 

MyTake – This is up there with ideas like the wheel, electricity and cable TV. TrekStor, take a bow, for you have done a service to the many men and women of offices all over the world. But (and it’s a big but) it’s apparently only going to launch in Europe – what about us thirsty office workers in Australia, or our brothers and sisters in North America, surely we deserve the right to open, pour and store! 

LinkedIn(side information)

I’m all for being upfront, transparent and open when it comes to social networking, even when it comes to LinkedIn. If you start lying on your profile, someone will eventually point it out. But, having said that, there’s probably a point at which you need to pull-back on the openness front, as a very unlucky Apple employee recently found out. In short, an Apple employee by the name of Wei-han Lien listed his responsibilities on his profile, including the fact that he was managing the “ARM CPU architecture”. What’s so bad about that then? 

Well, not so long ago Apple acquired a company called PA Semiconductor to work on new processors for the next generation of iPhone. The big question was of course which type of processor and I guess we all know the answer to that now. 

MyTake – It’s a fumble as opposed to a dropped ball. The market could see the direction this was going, but I guess the company and investors still had some wiggle room that has now probably disappeared. My message to Wei-han Lien – go make a kick ass processor my man, all will be forgotten when they ship a million plus next gen iPhone’s with your processor inside! 

I am also not Sarah Palin

Another day, another Wikipedia scandal. This time, it is Sarah Palin’s entry that has been, shall we say, finessed. Here are the facts: about a day before she was announced as the running mate for McCain, the entry for Sarah Palin was significantly changed with a more than positive glow added by a user called Young Trigg. Trigg, as my colleague Ed Hoover told me this morning, is in fact the name of Sarah Palin’s baby son….the plot thickens.   

Apparently, the last edits by Young Trigg were made only a few hours before the big announcement, just in time for the million-plus hits it was about to receive.  Young Trigg has since disappeared into nowhere and Wikipedia is now only allowing established editors to change the entry. The usual ruckus then commenced with questions over Young Trigg’s integrity until he came out to answer all the speculation: “I am not Sarah Palin. I am not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family…..I will acknowledge that I volunteer for the McCain campaign, one of thousands of people nationwide who are working to elect the best candidate for the job. Palin was not the nominee when I made my edits, though I am certainly excited about the selection. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem.” It's a bit like Spartacus, only without the swords...and the hero....

MyTake – I have this vision of little Trigg editing the entry himself, sort of like Stewie from Family Guy, only without the British accent. In all seriousness, Wikipedia is becoming a huge part of the political battle and the importance being placed upon it is fairly obvious from incidents like this. As a PR practitioner who always advises transparency online, I’d probably say that they have gotten away with it – of the people that hit that page in all its polished glory, I bet only a handful hear about the fact that it was altered by a “volunteer for the McCain campaign”. To close, I’d like to follow Young Trigg and say that I am also not Sarah Palin. I am also not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family. I will acknowledge that I write this blog, one of thousands of people all over the world that write blogs. Palin was the nominee when I wrote this post. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem – I am a non-violent person and I believe myself to be quite interesting. 

Mumanddadbook

I think it was only a couple of weeks ago that I wrote a post on how important it is for parents to understand technology, the web, gaming et al, so that they can better interact with this kids and more importantly. Well, it seems that the UK government is actually doing something about this. In my post, I mentioned that parents would probably have to get a bit more savvy with things like Nielsen reports in order to get an understanding of what their kids are up to, but UK-based Parentline Plus is set to launch a social networking site.

While it has a wider remit of providing support for parents in general, its very presence on the web gives it the advantage of being able to act as an authority for kids and the web. According to info on the web, the network is aimed at helping parents of teenage children share their problems, challenges and worries. What’s the old saying, a problem shared is a problem halved.

MyTake – Great initiative, I’d love to see the take up numbers on this. Having been a resident in the UK I can tell you that the people that are in most need are often the people that have the least – which probably doesn’t include a PC with access to the net. Having said that, if this can help parents going through a hard time (god knows mine did with me!) then it’s worth it.

Studbook: Connecting animals

It seems if you write about one marsupial and you have to write about them all. Only kidding, but it seems odd that last week it was Google’s Kangaroo and this week it’s a Koala trying to find a date online. Killarney the Koala is available and she’s online on a studbook. Sounds like some adults only version of Facebook doesn’t it, but it’s actually something that a lot of Zoo’s around the world are getting involved with in order to find mates for animals held in captivity. 

This post is actually based on a CNN article I read today. My favourite quote from the story talks about the various tricks the Zoo keepers use to get animals to breed: "There are some frogs that you have to simulate rain for or they won't come out and breed"….."Other frogs, they just need to hear the sound of rain and the sound of lightening and thunder. That's what sets off their hormones." Oh, easy then. 

MyTake – An intriguing article that goes to show that the guys at CNN have a sense of humor and are interested in the little guys as well as the bigger stories. I think that the idea of online studbooks that can help breeding efforts is great, I can just see the friend feed now: “Killarney has updated her relationship status”

Man Interrupted

You’d be forgiven for thinking that email had been around forever, but it wasn’t long ago that the fax machine and the common letter were still the main forms of communication. I read on a colleague’s blog that she remembers when she started work she had to share an email account with another employee. When I started working in PR in the ancient days of 1999 I spent most of my first internship standing by the fax machine sending information to journalists and clients.  

Hard to believe in a world dominated by online communications with email now the mainstay for us all. Why am I talking about email? Well, some research has been released by a guy called Dr Thomas Jackson and he works at Loughborough University in the UK, according to him email is a huge distraction that beaks our train of thought. He has some interesting findings and reckons that it takes us over a minute to get our concentration back after we’ve received an email which equates to eight and a half hours a week of “what was I doing again..” type thoughts for those of us that check our email every five minutes. 

MyTake – I’m not sure what concentration is any more! I get “interrupted” by emails, phone calls, Instant messages, tweets, questions….the lot. I think that they average person has a more fluid sense of concentration that is more outcome based, i.e. what are the tasks at hand and when do I need to achieve them by. But, I am not a doctor and Thomas Jackson is, so check out his website for tips on managing email. Just a thought though Doc, what about a study looking at instant messaging and micro-blogging?

KutcherCrunch

Something quite brilliant has been happening for a couple of years now and the guys at TechCrunch are behind it. TechCrunch50 is the second conference to be held by the TechCrunch guys and is aimed at finding “the best start-ups and launch them in front of our industry’s most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press”. 

According to the reports coming out of this year’s conference, the place is buzzing and there are a lot of cool start-ups there including TweeGee.com, Hangout.net, Goplanit and Blahgirls.com, a venture backed by Ashton Kutcher. The idea behind his venture is to provide gossip with attitude and was inspired by driving round the daughters of wife, Demi Moore.

TechCrunch received over 1,000 applications companies wishing to take part but at the three day event, as Christopher Lambert once uttered,  “there cam be only one”, and that one will walk away with a cash prize of $50,000. I have some friends at the event and have been following them on Twitter, Dave Ambrose said yesterday “A lot of people here at TechCrunch50 very open and looking for suggestions around their ideas”, which is awesome to hear, because that’s what this space is all about – sharing, growing and developing ideas with a bunch of people. Feedback is the buzz word of web 2.0 is more ways than one.

MyTake – It’s been a while since there’s been this amount of buzz and excitement around a conference and I think it’s great. We get to hear about people and companies that are out there thinking up cool things for us to play with and ultimately make the web a more interesting space. The more we collaborate, the more we learn and the more we learn the better the end product.

Yesterday’s fish & chip paper gets turned back into news

Alright, that’s a British saying and if you haven’t heard it before, it goes something like this “Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish & chip paper” it’s a saying from an ear when we Brits used to get our fish & chips handed to us wrapped in newspaper, demonstrating that nobody cared what was in the newspaper the day before. Getting to the point, Google announced that it has partnered with around a hundred newspapers to make old copies available online both as scans and text.   

The announcement was made at the TechCrunch50 in San Francisco where Google showed examples of newspapers covering the U.S. moon landing. According to the demonstration, you’ll be able to see the paper as it was printed, with information and articles separated out for ease of reading. The initiative appears to be beneficial for all parties, with Google running its AdSense service as part of the project with profits being shared with the newspaper partners.      

MyTake – it’s long been Google’s aim to make all the information ever available to everyone (or something like that) and they are getting closer and closer, first Google books and now this. Despite what is said about print, it is a barometer for the times and allows us a glimpse at what was. An idea I had when my daughter, nephew and niece were born was to buy them the newspaper from the day they were born so that they could get a feel for the world when they were born – I can’t even imagine the information that they will have available to them when they grow-up. They probably won’t look at that newspaper, but maybe we’ll have fish & chips on them.

Intergalactic planetary….tweets

Well, not quite intergalactic, but from Mars….and that’s pretty damn cool. It’s been a while any of the space missions have captured my imagination, only this morning I was reading about the “Jules Vern” spacecraft that’s essentially a posh rubbish bin that the astronauts on the International Space Station pile their rubbish into before aiming it at the atmosphere where it’s obliterated by the heat. Alright, I think I’ve mad it sound cooler that it is….cos it’s just a big bin, sorry Esa. 

On the other hand, The Mars Phoenix Lander is a far more interesting tale and one that we can follow practically minute by minute because the thing (or some engineer) is tweeting its journey so that us mere Earthlings can follow.  One of the latest tweets reads “News of my demise is premature but I appreciate the warm thoughts :-) I plan to last many more weeks before ice & darkness win”, The Mars Phoenix Lander also informed us “Solar panels generate about 2000 watt-hours of energy per sol (down from 3500 in June). So plan is to dig many samples now & then analyze”.   

MyTake – What an awesome use of twitter and totally cost-effective – hardly used any taxpayer money. Space missions just don’t get the coverage they used to and this is a very innovative way of allowing people to follow it using a medium that could have been made for it – hey NASA, you didn’t invent Twitter did you? I wonder if CERN are on twitter….. you could just imagine the tweets: ”smashed another proton…..I rock”. 

Tikitag, you’re it

RFID = Radio Frequency ID. I’ll get that out of the way right upfront for those (like me) that didn’t know what it stood for. On to the post, Tikitag is a new Alcatel-Lucent product and the basic premise of it is that you (the consumer) can put RFID tags on a whole host of everyday items that you use to access information on the web, or control functions on your PC. Con - fussed?!?    

Think of it a bit like the bar code scanners at the supermarket – you scan your goods and then the check-out displays the price and a bit of information about it. This works in a similar way, only there’s more information and it’s a lot more sophisticated.The example that that company has given so far is a business card, that when placed under an RFID reader (oh, you need one of those too) will pull up social networking information on that person.   

MyTake – Still a bit con-fussed…. I think it’s a great idea and when the product out in the wild a bit more, I think we’ll get a better idea of the applications. On the face of it, I think that it could have a lot of uses in the early education space. For example, using cards to interact with a learning game online could be a great idea. But still, show us some more, we’re keen, but still a bit…..

EA plays with iPhone

As if you needed another reason to buy an iPhone, here’s another one (or three) - you can now get SimCity and Sim3 on you iPhone and Spore will be available on September 7. On top on this, a recent EA press release also reveals that Monopoly, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Need for Speed Undercover are currently in development.

After giving the mobile phone industry a huge kick up the behind, it looks like the iPhone is finally about to take a take a bite out of the mobile games industry. In my books, that puts everyone on notice. Still though, the annoying thing is the data charges here in Australia – how is this going to make online-gaming appealing? With EA putting a lot of money into developing for the iPhone, who’ll follow next and what titles? A word to EA – please think of a way to bring FIFA to the iPhone.   

MyTake – Gaming is surely the next big target area for the boys at Apple and the iPhone is the product to do it on. I remember when the original iPhone first came out and a friend of mine from Gamespot.com.au showed me a very basic racing game – I was totally blown away. A few killer titles, some decent online gaming and we’ll see another market flavoured Apple.  

Google's Pet Kangaroo

When is a Kangaroo not a Kangaroo? When it’s the name of a new start-up venture being courted by Google. Project Kangaroo, as it’s being called, is a new website that will bring TV shows from UK broadcasters the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 together in one place as part of a joint effort between the broadcasters and the Google. 

Details are a bit sketchy at the moment, but the website would be partly advertiser-funded with new shows being aired for free featuring adverts, while older shows will be available on some kind of rental program. Of course, the Competition Commission is sniffing around any potential deal like a Kelpie (iconic Australian dog) at BBQ and they’ll probably think of a million reasons why it shouldn’t be allowed to happen, but so far Google are convinced it’s a goer. 

MyTake – Google are on a roll aren’t they? While I think that the idea of centralising content is good, I don’t know that a website is the way to go, unless it functions as some kind of virtual TV set. Surely it would make sense for the broadcasters to make their content available (advertiser-funded of course) through a program like iTunes, or in a format that most media players could work with? It’s still early days and I’m not entirely sure what it is, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing more information about it soon. Plus, I don’t think Google has ever launched or got involved with a dud in it’s ten year existence. Oh yeah – Happy 10th Birthday Google! 

Pay me, I'm cool

It’s always paid to be cool – everyone likes you, you’re popular, people want to be like you and be with you. Now it really pays to be cool with the launch of Popcuts, a new music downloads site that actually rewards users the more cool they are. 

Popcuts charges users just under a (U.S.) dollar per track, but the cool bit is when other people then purchase the same track(s) as you. Once you have purchased a track and others purchase it afterwards (following you lead if you will) you get rewarded for it like some kind of cool barometer. 

In addition, the sooner you buy the track, the greater the reward you get. Essentially, Popcuts gets around 10-20 per cent of the profit with the artists getting to nominate their cut and the rest is then shared out between the fans that buy the tracks with the top-trendsetters taking the lions share. 

MyTake – Reports so far show that users have been more likely to get on to the site to search for new artists and music in search of greater rewards, so it’s clearly working. I think that this kind of an idea can help shift more music fans from illegal downloads to legal downloads. Sure, the quality issue is a big factor, but it’s not enough for some. By adding this value-add, or rewards system (and one that clearly taps into the ego of most music fans), purchasing music becomes a cool factor and more interestingly, a social ranking tool. 

Talking digital in Melbourne - how far we've come

I just got back from attending and speaking at the New Media Conference in Melbourne, ran by the team at Frocomm. The whole conference was hosted by Ross Monaghan of Deakin University who had a lot of interesting points to make throughout the conference – especially at the end of day two when he pulled out a number of extremely old magazines (including one that featured one of the first desktop PCs which boasted a whole 4K or RAM) just to demonstrate how far we've come (hence my choice of picture). 

A couple of the highlights for me: Laurel Papworth and her presentation on the media revolution, going from web 1.0 through to web 3.0 and the implications of that. Mark Park of Deacons talked about the legal ramifications to be considered when working with new media –  ethics, defamation and copyright. And there were a whole host of other speakers including representatives from Fairfax, ABC, Howorth, Edelman and the BrandAide group. 

Walter Jennings also gave a very insightful presentation on new media from the CEO point of view. In all, it was a great conference with some very knowledgeable people sharing their insights. I talked about how you can integrate new media into a communications plan based on the principles of listening, planning and participation - with a strong emphasis on the listening part.

MyTake – It was great to see that there's so much passion for the online space and that there are so many people that want to get involved. It still seems that the biggest hurdle is getting the C-suite to recognise the importance of the online. But, with a growing number of people becoming so passionate about the space, it can’t be long before we’re making converts of them all. I’ll leave you with the quote I closed my presentation on, from the CEO of P&G 

“The power is with the consumer. Consumers are beginning, in a very real sense, to own our brands and participate in their creation. We need to begin to learn to let it go…”

That'll learn ya!

Technology is changing the face of education in a fairly dramatic fashion. Most of today’s Uni-goers get the options of streaming lectures, podcasts and vodcasts, plus a whole host of other online tools for them to pick and choose from. But there’s another revolution happening, one that the rest of us can benefit from. Called School of Everything, it’s a kind of social network that helps teachers of all shapes and sizes connect with those that need their services. 

Having recently tried to get hold of a local Swedish teacher (to converse with the in-laws) here in Sydney, it was bloody frustrating. I eventually found a leaflet in the Swedish embassy when I managed to make it there before the 12pm closing time….I think you’re getting my point…..This type of service would be incredibly useful. 

I’ve not signed-up yet, but I hope they incorporate a lot of feedback into the site – like recommendations for teachers.  I’ve also heard that they are going to have a payment system on the site at a later date, allowing you to pay for courses and additional lesions/lectures more easily.    

MyTake – It sounds like a pretty great site and the idea of having a number of different teachers and resources in one searchable place is a huge plus. Most people have a list of things that that want to learn but have put-off for years because they either couldn’t find the right teacher, it wasn’t convenient, or it was simply too much of a task to try and sort it out. By combining the best elements of a social network (sharing) with a receptive audience, you’re pretty much hitting the nail on the head when it comes to web 2.0 (proving relevant content).

Chrome up your PC, but not your mac

Just Another 24 Hours posted on his first experience of chrome. You can read it here.

I am yet to have my first chrome experience, when I tried to download it on my mac last night, they er.... well, they haven't built it yet.....